A blog written by Kafi Khaibar Lubis, 2022-23 student of the Environment and Sustainable Development MSc

“Your acting was great. But stop crying.”

Not more than 20 years ago, I was called by my hysterical mom to quickly get inside the house while playing outside as a sunburnt pre-teenager. She was upset like I had never seen before, locked the doors, and shouted things at me, my dad, my uncle, and everyone in my family. She cried. I was just wearing a normal-sized T-shirt gifted by my beloved uncle, the only sibling my mother had. I never understood why it upset her so much until decades later.

 

Chapter 1: Sickle and Hammer

A couple of months ago, I crashed into a screening held by a film society at one of University College London’s neighbouring universities. It was for a film that I had always wanted to see but was never able to: “The Act of Killing”, or “Jagal” in Indonesian (literal English translation: “slaughter”), a documentary by Joshua Oppenheimer, Christine Cynn, and an anonymous Indonesian co-director. It was about the mass murder that happened in Indonesia around 1965-1966 to millions of people associated, or assumed to be associated with, the Indonesian Communist Party.

This film was never formally distributed in Indonesia. It was only known through underground screenings and word of mouth, which was not a surprise since the topic of the 1965 mass murder itself is very hard to talk about in the country. One could risk being distanced from, labelled a communist (pejorative), or even prosecuted. The film, therefore, plays a significant role in opening and normalizing discussions about the topic and taking a step in unlocking what has been, for so many decades, a painfully silenced collective trauma.

 

Chapter 2: Confrontation with Reality, Truth, and Knowledge

At the beginning of the screening, they invited Soe Tjen Marching, writer of the 2017 book titled “The End of Silence: Accounts of the 1965 Genocide in Indonesia” to give an introduction. Her father would have been a victim of the mass murder, if it had not been for the delay in processing his name to join the party’s organizing committee. She introduced the film by bringing to light recently declassified documents from the government of the United States of America that played a significant role in setting off the chain of events that led to the 1965 mass murder. However unsettling, the documents act as robust evidence against justifications made for the mass murder, including and especially the government-produced film of the event that was once a mandatory watch for schoolchildren in Indonesia in the 1980-1990s. These forms of knowledge possession have perpetuated the exclusion, silencing, and denial of genocide, leaving the victims at the hand of many types of injustice (Oranli, 2018; Oranlı, 2021).

“The Act of Killing”, on the other hand, used a unique approach to documentary filmmaking that allowed the perpetrators to participate in the production process and shape the story themselves. The film asks former commanders of the Indonesian death squads, who oversaw the execution of hundreds of thousands of suspected communists and other political dissidents in the 1960s, to recreate their atrocities. Devoid of remorse, the perpetrators were proud of their actions, even providing creative choices to narrate the reenactment in the style of their favourite Hollywood genre: action western.

The film’s epistemology is based on the belief that by allowing the subjects to participate in the production process and control the narrative, the film can achieve a level of authenticity and emotional depth that traditional documentaries may not be able to achieve. One might question why after decades of silencing and exclusion, a filmmaker would give a platform to the perpetrators. They are, after all, most often indifferent to the injury they have done and lack any understanding of the extent of harm they have caused. But as the film progressed, it was clear that this was a well-calculated strategy. It was precisely by giving space for the perpetrator to show off their crime that the truth became plain and visible, the genocide clear and undeniable.

 

There was one powerful scene in which the daughter of one of the perpetrators could not stop crying after they shot a reenactment of women and kids being taken away from their homes and their houses set on fire (Fig. 1). She was just an actress, playing one of the kids in the scene. The perpetrator was visibly aware of his daughter’s distress and was trying to comfort her: “Your acting was great,” he said, “but stop crying.” It was followed by depictions of other actors, children, and adults alike, looking traumatized by the reenactment, some requiring physical assistance to calm them down and remove themselves from the situation. Although obviously much milder than what truly happened in the 1960s, the activity incited an exchange of knowledge, blurring the reality and fiction of what they wanted to portray. It was no hidden knowledge that their crime caused significant terror; it was simply something that everybody was afraid to say. Now, by loudly narrating their own ruthless crimes, the perpetrators got a taste of their own medicine.

This method of filmmaking provides an interesting basis for analysis of epistemic injustice, delving into the nature and limits of knowledge. By allowing the perpetrators to narrate the story, the film not only exposes society’s normalization of celebrating brutal murderers but also places the killers in the position to confront their own past actions and their consequences. Another interesting example was Anwar Congo, a prominent leader in the death squad. Throughout the film’s first half, Congo seemed unrepentant and rather laid-back while recounting the murderous event. However, as the cowboy style film he had directed about his killing past neared its end, he started feeling nauseous. He cried, seemingly having an extremely late epiphany (Fig. 2). In that scene, a vivid connection is built between having knowledge and being aware of one’s own actions.

 

The fact that the filmmakers tried more than 30 times to find and interview different subjects is, in some ways, an attempt to understand the many forms of knowledge and the chase of finding the hidden knowledge held by an individual, as categorized in the Johari window (Bhakta et al., 2019; Shenton, 2007). Also, such effort was a sign that the film was not about them or the filmmaking. Oppenheimer had his realization moment and shifted the focus to the perpetrators; that what they did, was almost like a multi-layer fiction, a simulacrum, to say the least, of hidden knowledge, unknown knowledge, and blind knowledge of the genocides, their regrets, and their pride that in itself is a hidden remorse trying to justify their past actions.

Reflexivity and self-awareness become the central theme in the film’s method of unveiling the truth about the tragic past. With the denialism of the perpetrators that have been observed elsewhere, the creators might or might not be intentionally utilizing this reflexive participation measure to disclose objective information and even to induce empathy in people who were detached from their cruelty. With the surfacing of the declassified government documents, the fear and secrecy of the victims, and the genocide denialism, the injustice of knowledge possession has been hiding in plain sight, crossing identities and the reality of a whole nation.

 

Chapter 3: Empathy, Trauma, and Dreams of Justices

The images of my memories started to become clearer. I understand better about that day, the day my mother was upset beyond measure towards everyone. I remember the T-shirt I wore, which my uncle gave to me. It was a dark blue T-shirt with a sickle and hammer logo and the bold black writing of “SOVIET UNION”.

The discourse on epistemic justice and participatory measures extends beyond academia and into fieldwork, practice, and lived experience. My own family had their own trauma regarding the 1965 mass murder, which I never entirely understood since it could never be talked about openly. “The Act of Killing” tried to unveil the chronic terror of the tragedy both loudly and delicately, borrowing the voice of the perpetrator to raise the volume of the victims’ collective voice. The film confronted the perpetrators not with a team of obvious enemies, but with the most powerful confronter of all: a mirror image of themselves.

The fruit of participation, or engaging people, can open and lead to many kinds of knowledge, whichever type and however vile or inspirational that is, that leads to something minuscule such as being free to wear anything we want, to be anything we want, to justice, and the truth. Moreover, the disclosure of information, whether it be from the state to the people, from the victims to the public, or even from the very perpetrators to their own eyes and mind, can be the first step to opening up a complex dialogue, taking responsibility and addressing a proper apology, healing a collective trauma, and marching towards a better, more empathetic and just future.

 

References

Bhakta, A., Fisher, J., & Reed, B. (2019). Unveiling hidden knowledge: Discovering the hygiene needs of perimenopausal women. International Development Planning Review, 41(2), 149–171.

Oppenheimer, J., Anonymous, & Cynn, C. (2012). The Act of Killing. Drafthouse Films

Oranli, I. (2018). Genocide Denial: A Form of Evil or a Type of Epistemic Injustice? European Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 4(2), 45–51.

Oranlı, I. (2021). Epistemic Injustice from Afar: Rethinking the Denial of Armenian Genocide. Social Epistemology, 35(2), 120–132. https://doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2020.1839593

Shenton, A. K. (2007). Viewing information needs through a Johari Window. Reference Services Review.

By Fildzah Husna Amalina, Kirana Putri Prastika, Ignacia Ossul-Vermehren

DPU’s partner NGO Kota Kita, reflects on the role of documentary making as part of the action-research project Re-Framed conducted in two low-income neighbourhoods in Solo, Indonesia and Lima, Perú. The project aims to advance collective narrative construction, and to develop an ethical and practical framework for working remotely on visual outputs. 

Facilitators from both countries joined a series of trainings and webinars led by DPU, and then conducted participatory sessions in a low-income neighbourhood in their city. Participants – female ad male residents from a range of ages – scripted, directed and edited their own documentary. 

Reframing community’s stories

The process started with questions: “Why tell a story?” and “what story to tell?”. In the beginning, we wanted to encourage more conversations on what stories mean and what role they play in the community—and reflect on what kind of stories residents wanted to tell that reflected their own experiences and reality.

Kampung Ngampon is a neighbourhood that is located in Mojosongo, Solo, known for its bamboo birdcage craft. Ngampon is a dense neighbourhood in an urbanised area of the city, with a total population of 700-800 inhabitants. Most of the residents are birdcage makers and rely on home-based craft businesses for their livelihood.

We asked the participants: “What comes to mind when you hear about Kampung Ngampon?” “What do you want to tell others about your neighbourhood?” As challenging stereotypes and reframing narratives was a key part of the project. Some participants felt that a story that could reflect on gotong royong – an Indonesian term translated to togetherness and mutual cooperation – would be a good angle when telling a story about their solidarity within the neighbourhood. They wanted to share a story that could be an example for the younger generation in the community and, at the same time, make more people interested in learning about their neighbourhood. This process then was not about finding a story only for the film. It also came as an important reflection of the values they appreciate—from their togetherness as a community to their image as a birdcage makers’ neighbourhood.

The facilitation process acknowledged that each individual might have their own vision of a good story—and to ‘choose’ one out of many ideas wouldn’t be an easy task. We divided the participants into two smaller groups so that everyone could have more space to share their thoughts and explore their creativity. The first group wanted to tell a story about the reality they faced through one young character; meanwhile, the other wanted to show their community’s collective solidarity and togetherness as part of their identity. When discussing again in the larger group, the participants didn’t compete to pick only a single story. From two different stories they had identified, we worked collectively to prioritise, compromise, and decide on a general plot. We combined and incorporated the main messages and made them into one. 

Doing a narrative-driven process was helpful because it provided a room for imagination in seeing the situation around us. It was not only about the challenging circumstances, but also about the possibilities. Eventually, in Kampung Ngampon, the film’s ending reflects a more hopeful vision of the community; as Bagus, the main character, put it, “From my perspective, the main message of this film is (for everyone) to keep up a resilient spirit and not give up. When there’s a will, there’s a way!“

Exploring Creative Approaches for Community Facilitation in Kampung Ngampon

When it comes to facilitation with the community, it is not only the participants who learn and gain something from the process. In Ngampon, the initiative provided an opportunity for the team of facilitators of Kota Kita to reflect on some of our current practices and what we can explore more.

Storytelling and videography as tools of sharing thoughts and aspirations in a more meaningful way—beyond social media posts they were already familiar with—were new for the community of birdcage makers we had worked with during the project. The sense of newness and their curiosity about the tools brought up their spirit in engaging and contributing to the dynamics of the discussion. The more practical filmmaking skill set that we exchanged throughout the training was something that the participants found challenging but also exciting to learn—which then ‘bound’ the participants to the end. During the discussions, imagining the visual output, for instance, in the storyboarding workshop, also helped encourage more imaginative ideas and visual forms of aspiration, which would have been more unlikely to come up from conventional facilitation methods.

The power dynamics between facilitators and participants was something we reflected together through the training and filming process. The use of stories as facilitation tools meant that the participants had enough room to shape and direct the story they wanted to tell. As facilitators, we usually position ourselves in a place where we have the control to structure the discussion, but still allow people to feel comfortable to participate. Through the process, we compromised and intentionally gave up our control to allow the narrative to be owned by/and created organically by residents. 

 

Beyond a Film

In a participatory initiative, it is important to produce a collective output that is able to incorporate collective messages. The participants decided and shaped the story together, came up with the dialogue that best portrayed their daily interaction naturally, acted in the film, decided the angle and shot the video footage, assisted the editing process—they are not only part of the film, but also the filmmakers. As facilitators, we noted that having one output that the community can claim as something they owned is important to redefine that participatory process is not always used only for conventional ‘data collection’ as part of a research whose the result may not be directly ‘rewarding’ for the community.

In the end, it is not only about the film. The overall process was also a learning opportunity. The discussions have enabled a space for reflection for the community about their own narrative and what they wanted to share with everyone else through the film. It was also a capacity-building experience not only in the sense of technical skills, but also a space to strengthen their collective awareness and agency—while, of course, having a lot of fun together in the process.

 

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Re-Framed is an action research project led by DPU´s Dr. Rita Lambert, Dr. Ignacia Ossul-Vermehren and Alex Macfarlane. Its objective is to advance collective narrative construction through remote, participatory documentaries, and to develop an ethical and practical framework for working remotely on visual outputs produced by urban dwellers in low-income neighbourhoods. The implementing partners are NGO Kota Kita in in Solo, Indonesia and CENCA in Lima, Peru. The project received funding from DPU’s Internal post-COVID research initiative. 

Fildzah Husna Amalina and Kirana Putri Prastika work at NGO Kota Kita, a non-profit organisation based in the Indonesian city of Solo with expertise in urban planning and citizen participation in the design and development of cities. 

By Ignacia Ossul Vermehren (DPU), Nina Asterina (Kota Kita) and Hawanatu Bangura (SLURC)

The 3^rd of December is the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. We reflect on this year’s theme “Building Back Better: toward a disability-inclusive, accessible and sustainable post COVID-19 World” through DPU’s research “AT2030: Community led solutions” in informal settlements Sierra Leone and Indonesia.

While we know that 15% of the world’s population lives with a disability, there is no global data specifically on informal settlements. After conducting the rATA WHO survey last year, we found that 26% of people surveyed across four informal settlements in Indonesia and Sierra Leone experienced at least ‘some difficulty’ in seeing, walking, hearing, remembering and/or communicating. One third lacked the assistive products they needed. Despite being a major issue, disability tends to be overlooked in urban and development research.

The impact of COVID-19 on disabled people in informal settlements

 Between April and August this year, we conducted a research on the impact of COVID-19 on older people and disabled residents in Sierra Leone and Indonesia. Distinct effects emerged, including loss of livelihoods, reduced educational opportunities, unequal access to government support, limited social life and poorer access to information. Moreover, COVID-19 recovery narratives emphasising the importance of ‘healthy bodies’ have exacerbated these difficulties and increased stigma towards disabled people (see video with stories from Indonesia here).

However, the research also highlighted how community-based organisations in the global South are stepping in to provide support, whether through life-saving resources, accessible information, new spaces for disabled people’s participation, or innovative collaborations in the city. As has been the case across the world, the pandemic has brought into focus the experiences of those more vulnerable members of the community.

Making disability visible in communities

 While research in informal settlements has tended to overlook or co-opt the voices of disabled people, making disability more ‘visible’ has its tensions. A first step that challenges rather than reinforces stigma has been to engage with the specific lived experiences and priorities of disabled residents.

 An important output of Phase 1 of the research has shown that the methods, implemented through grassroots organisations with a participatory approach in the communities, can facilitate an emerging collective and positive identity around ‘disability’. Many participants who did not initially want to refer to themselves as disabled, started to see disability as a more positive, political, group identity.  Providing spaces for disabled residents to participate in the wider decision-making process of low-income communities, can further foster solidarity between disabled and non-disabled members of the community.

The leadership of the Federation of the Urban and Rural Poor (FEDURP) have themselves felt influenced in the way they approach disabled residents. As FEDURP’s country head said in a speech during last year’s Celebration of International Day of Persons with Disabilities: “We knew that disability was a big issue, but we hadn’t engaged with it, neither including disability in the discussion nor working with disabled residents specially. FEDURP is now committed to working with people with disabilities.”

Coming together to foster a political identity around disability

International Day of Persons with Disabilities has become an important event in giving visibility to disability in the two communities in Sierra Leone. This year, Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre, FEDURP and Dr. Abdulaya Dumbaya (a disability activist and Head of the Springer Trust Fund) will be reflecting on how COVID has affected disabled people, discussing disability rights and sharing stories of resilience in the communities.

In Pelambuan, a low-income neighbourhood in Banjarmasin, Indonesia, the celebrations this year led by NGO Kota Kita will be marked with the painting of a mural on the theme of “Community participation towards an inclusive neighbourhood (kampung)”. The mural aims to translate community voices and aspirations — particularly those with disabilities — and build collective identity through an inclusive approach.

As a physically impaired male participant in Pelambuan said, “I am really happy to participate in this mural project. I like the idea of turning our aspirations into images on the wall. I hope this activity can inspire other neighbourhoods to strengthen their community participation.”

Through making disability more visible, and engaging with tensions that may arise, the research has been able to create space for disabled people to take a shaping role in the community. Recognizing days such as this is an important step in continuing to do so.

 

The action research project “AT2030 Community Led Solutions” is led by DPU’s Julian Walker as part Global Disability Innovation Hub’s programme and funded by UK Aid.